Avoiding Burnout During Bar Prep

Studying for the bar is a long and grueling process, but it’s important that you pace yourself. If you don't, you risk getting burned out at the exact wrong time — during the couple weeks right before the bar exam. The following are some tips on how to stay on top of things without going overboard.

Get things in order

Free time is hard to come by during bar prep, but you have more of it now than you will in four weeks. So use what free time you have now to hammer away all the small logistical things in your life — whether they're related to the bar exam or not — now in order to ensure your bar prep goes smoothly later during crunch time.

Later, when you are in the thick of studying, you won’t have a lot of time, energy, or mental capacity to do other things, even if it’s something simple like paying bills or going to the dentist or the gym.

You've already been hammered with a few subjects by your bar prep course. That's normal. But you've got more ahead of you. So while most of your time should be focused on what you're learning now, spend a little time looking at outlines you made for classes you took on bar prep subjects you haven't yet studied.

As you move forward in bar prep, you’ll notice how quickly your understanding of the law comes back to you from your previous courses (you may have already noticed). Given this, you can give yourself a little leg up by just briefly reviewing the main issues in subjects you have coming up.

You may be exhausted, but you're putting in good work. So take some time every day to make sure you're staying sane. Whether it's video games, Netflix, or just reading a good book, take some time to yourself. You'll have less and less of this time as the bar exam approaches, so using it now can help you stay sane later.

In the end, studying for the bar exam is a long and arduous road. So take a moment to breathe and have a little fun in this early stage. You might forget what fun feels like soon.